Wednesday, August 9, 2017

News Note: Jim Rickards Interview on Sky News on North Korea

Obviously there is serious news out regarding North Korea. Jim Rickards is one of the best sources we have on issues like this because of his contacts with people who have an in depth understanding of these kinds of situations.

Last night he did this interview with Sky News based on the news out yesterday on North Korea. I would recommend that everyone pay attention to this situation in the coming months. Please note that in this interview Jim mentions a maximum one year window of time for the US to deal with this threat. We will just pray for a resolution to this with as little harm as possible to people everywhere. Everyone needs to set aside politics and hope the US can deal with this without a need for war if that is possible.

"Kim Jong-un has two big reasons to keep his program going: 1) He believes that if he perfects it, the U.S. won’t mess with him and he can perpetuate his regime, and; 2) He can sell the technology for gold to keep his people happy and protect his regime. He’s like the Godfather sitting up there.

The problem is, the United States is not going to allow him to nuke Los Angeles. He might say, “I just want the capability so you guys won’t mess with me,” but the answer is, “No, you’re not going to get the capability.”

You can’t gamble with Los Angeles. You can’t even take a 1% gamble with Los Angeles. You can’t even take a fraction of 1%. This is something Dick Cheney called the 1% doctrine, which meant that when the risks are existential, you can’t take even a minute fraction of 1%. You can’t make that bet; you have to eliminate it.

Kim Jong-un is on a course to get the weapons, and the U.S. is on a course to prevent him from getting the weapons. Each side misreads the intentions of the other. Now, here’s where it gets really interesting and I think war could be imminent: How do you actually root out this program?

There’s an old saying, If you shoot the king, don’t miss, meaning if you try to assassinate a leader – shoot the king, in other words – and you miss, you’re dead. They’re going to come back to you.

This is what happened with Hitler and the Wolf’s Lair plot when they actually got a briefcase bomb two inches from Hitler. It blew up, but the briefcase had been moved behind an oak panel at the last minute. Hitler was injured and wounded but not killed. Of course, that was bad news for all the perpetrators, because they all got killed.

If you shoot the king, don’t miss, so if we, the United States, are going to take out the North Korean nuclear program, we must get it all. We can’t leave them with any fissile material, any missile launch capability, any reactors, etc., because they’ll just come back and get us.

There are ways to do it. I’ve been talking about the ICBM in Los Angeles as the existential threat, but they could unleash a military barrage on Seoul. I’ve been to Seoul a number of times, and it’s very close to the North Korean border.

It would be nicer for them if they were down around Busan or someplace further away, but they’re not. They’re well within artillery range. I’m not talking about bomber range; I’m talking about artillery range of the North Korean border, and they will be massively bombarded. Then North Korea could use even their short-range missiles to attack U.S. bases in Korea and the region.

Even if they can’t reach L.A. because we hit them before they can get the ICBM, they can easily kill a lot of Americans in the region. That’s exactly what they’ve threatened to do and have the capability of. If we hit them, we have to take out everything, or else the retaliation on us, the South Koreans, probably the Japanese, and others will be pretty horrendous. So, if you shoot the king, don’t miss.

What does it mean when I say don’t miss? The North Korean stuff is underground buried in mountains and heavily fortified. We do have GBUs (bunker buster bombs) and have been working on that, but if we give them more time and let them burrow in deeply and dig more tunnels, we might have to use tactical nuclear weapons.

Now, atomic weapons. I’m switching back and forth between atomic and nuclear weapons to distinguish between Hiroshima-type bombs and thermonuclear devices, which North Korea is not even close to getting. Russia and United States have them.

Atomic weapons are the kind used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. August 1945 was the last and only time these weapons were used in warfare, but obviously, they’ve been tested up until the 1960s.

There are some smaller-yield, tactical nuclear weapons called sub-nuclear, which are pretty powerful. They get up to a certain critical stage and unleash a lot of energy. I don’t want to get too technical on all this, but the point being, those are obviously more powerful than the bunker busters.

Will we have to use those to wipe out the North Korean program to make sure if we shoot, we don’t miss? All I know is the more time that goes on, the more likely that becomes. If you’re the United States and are saying “We don’t want to use tactical nuclear weapons, because that crosses a separate red line that gives Russia permission to use them elsewhere,” then you’d better act sooner rather than later.

Here’s the dynamic: Kim Jong-un is on a course where he says, “I’m keeping my nuclear weapons to perpetuate my regime and so that the U.S. won’t mess with me.” The U.S. is on a course that says, “We have to take out your program sooner rather than later because it’s an existential threat.” That’s a recipe for war sooner rather than later."

"He (Lindsey Graham) added that he feels the U.S. will head toward war with the North "unless the world can stop North Korea", saying Mr. Trump will "pick homeland defense over regional stability and he has to."

BullionCoin Update 8-9-17: While the official BullionCoin web site has not launched yet as of this note, there is a help site now online for people who have

expressed interest and may have questions ahead of the launch. It is here.

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